Soap opera star Christian LeBlanc is revealing his cancer battle. LeBlanc, who is a regular on The Young and the Restless as Michael Baldwin, shared that he has been diagnosed with the blood cancer Myeloma, which he has been battling since June, but is now in remission.
LeBlanc sat down for an interview with CBS affiliate WWL-TV, per Deadline, in which he shared the details of his diagnosis and how he first noticed signs that something may be wrong with his health.
The actor said he first suspected not all was well when he began getting into costume for a Y&R episode. Prior to the incident, LeBlanc said, fans of the soap had noticed that his eye looked different.
“I went in [to the studio] and… they put my wedding ring on — Lauren and Michael’s wedding ring — and I put my hand down and the ring fell off without friction and I thought what an odd thing,” he said. “My nose started bleeding on set, this eye kind of got a little wonky, and there was a tumor in the sinus cavity.”
LeBlanc, who has been a staple on Y&R since first joining the show in 1991 — and taking a brief hiatus between 1993 and 1997 — has been missing from the show in the last few months. He is now sharing that his absence was due to his diagnosis, subsequent surgery and treatment.
The actor, who said he “lost 35 pounds in two months,” said he had never faced health issues serious enough to land him in the hospital until he was diagnosed with cancer.
“I was diagnosed around June, Santa Monica, St. John’s Hospital, which I’d never been to. I’d never spent a day in the hospital in my 65 years until this year,” he said.
LeBlanc added, “It’s a very common cancer, but again, it’s like you don’t think of a pink elephant. Now that I hear about Myeloma, you hear it everywhere.”
Now that he is in remission, LeBlanc is teaming up with The Little Big Cup and the Cancer Support Community (CSC), organizations that help others impacted by cancer.
“When they called me up, I’m thinking of medical support, but what these people do is all the surrounding things that happen to you when you’re diagnosed with something like this,” LeBlanc said, per Us Weekly. “So it’s about how to mentally deal with it, how financially you might cope with some of the expenses being out of work and all these amazing things.”
Y&R fans can expect to see LeBlanc back on the show for its Thanksgiving episode, which airs Nov. 23.